Art direction is typically not taught in school, but I was lucky to begin my career working with Ronn Campisi, former art director at the Boston Globe, at his studio where I had a front-row seat to see how he worked with artists and even dipped my toe in art directing. After that, I worked at a magazine where I hired dozens of illustrators and photographers and directed them under the guidance of a very talented art director, Carol Layton. These two experiences gave me a strong foundation in how to work with artists and also the ethics of the industry.
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]]>Art direction is typically not taught in school, but I was lucky to begin my career working with Ronn Campisi, former art director at the Boston Globe, at his studio where I had a front-row seat to see how he worked with artists and even dipped my toe in art directing. After that, I worked at a magazine where I hired dozens of illustrators and photographers and directed them under the guidance of a very talented art director, Carol Layton. These two experiences gave me a strong foundation in how to work with artists and also the ethics of the industry.
When I work with illustrators, photographers, and writers, there is a reason I pick that person for the assignment. But the person I may pick may be different than who one of my team members or clients may pick. “There is no right or wrong. It is subjective,” says Melissa Wells, art director at Bowdoin College. This is so true, especially noting that Melissa and I selected very different illustrators for a story about “women’s writing—the word choices the authors and translators make, the stories they tell, and the gendered lens through which they are viewed.” When I read the story I was drawn to the women’s perspective and envisioned Hanna Barczyk’s bold work while Melssia was drawn to the quieter work of Harriot Lee-Merron in representing the text that was referenced. Two very different takes on the same story, neither right or wrong. (For the record I think Melissa’s selection was perfect.)
But the rationale behind selecting an artist shouldn’t be entirely subjective. At the core is the assignment: What is the story that needs to be told? Who is the audience? Melissa notes, “The editor’s ability to tell the story, to talk through it, share a summary and notes about a feeling they want to evoke is all really helpful in directing the story.” All of this informs who is the best fit to tell that story visually.
Art Director, David Armario, notes that you want to hire “an illustrator for their mind.” From there give them the story and creative freedom to get the best illustration. For over 30 years that has been his approach for Stanford Medicine, among other magazines, and the result is an elevated magazine.
In addition to the story and audience, the institution’s brand plays an important role in direction. The way a story is told for a small liberal arts college will be different from a big state university, or a graduate school. Referencing the institution’s Identity Brand Guide is important, though these tend to include visual direction for photography and not illustration. If you don’t have a selection of illustrators and photographers as part of your identity guidelines consider adding them. As part of the redesign scope, 2communiqué always includes samples of illustrators and artist representatives that align with the identity of the school. This framework gives the team objectivity when selecting talent for an assignment.
Melissa notes that she uses this guide as a launching point (we redesigned Bowdoin Magazine in 2018) and from there, she pokes around agency websites, looks at work in other magazines, and reviews samples from illustrators and agencies. When she is narrowing down her selection, she likes to read their bios to see if their interests align. “It is good if they have a personal interest in the story,” adds Melissa. Examples she shared of personal interest enhancing a story include Harriet’s interest in history, photographer Greta Rybus’s nature-themed work for a story about winter farming, and Heather Perry’s portrait series, Six Feet Apart, which inspired the direction for the Spring / Summer 20202 cover story, “Finding Our Way”).
This point of view or personal connection is particularly important when working with a photographer. Timothy Archibald said when he was a younger father he got a lot of assignments with children because he was posting a lot of images of his children on social media. His direct experience gave him a deeper understanding and comfort in working with children. He notes, “When I was the dad, I could photograph any kid. Before I was a Dad, I couldn’t photograph kids, I was terrified of photographing kids. I remember seeing other people on set know how to talk to these kids and I couldn’t. But I think as an artist and a photographer, you tune your radar to the thing that you are engaged with.”
We worked with Timothy on a story for Nobles about the documentary filmmaker Pete Nicks. While Timothy’s early personal work was about his children, it is now about his life at the University of the Arts in San Francisco, represented in the “Sutter Street” series. It was this work that captured my eye when thinking about photographing a filmmaker—I wanted the visual direction to document time with him. I also knew from working with Timothy in the past and having the writer share her experience interviewing Pete Nicks that they would connect personally. That connection added depth to the shoot that another photographer may not have captured.
Melissa selected Levi Walton for the profile on Electric Black, a longtime writer on Sesame Street, after reviewing portfolios of numerous photographers on Diversify Photo, and Jessica Scranton to photograph Bowdoin’s first female President, Safa Zaki, knowing that they wanted to work with a woman photographer for the story. This isn’t to say you have to have children to photograph children, be a 50+-year-old man to photograph a 50+ man, be Black to photograph a Black person, or a woman to shoot a woman. But it is important to consider the artist’s point of view and how they will connect with the subject and story because making it easier for subjects to connect with their photographers makes them more comfortable, resulting in better pictures.
Along those lines, knowledge or comfort with a subject matter may hinder the outcome. When I look at a lot of institutional photography, I see a sameness. How can a school stand out if the visual direction from one to the next is similar? How can we look at campus-wide photo shoots and allow for the photographer to bring their perspective to the assignment? Timothy shares, “The photographer who shoots for the college campuses all the time thinks he knows what he needs, ‘Let’s have the picture of the Asian woman walking down with the math textbook or whatever it is.’ These things are hard to break for all of us but I think there is that fine line where you want the fresh eye on it and also need to have structure in the shot list.”
Last, it is always nice to have a connection with the photographer, like you would with the campus photographer or other local freelancers. But that isn’t always an option when assigning photo shoots around the world. Curating a selection of their work, giving background on why this story for this institution, and sharing what you are looking for in the story, whether it is a portrait or a day with a group of students in Prague, will lead to success, most of the time.
When visual storytelling is done well it connects the audience with the subject and place in a way that is unique to the institution.
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]]>I don’t mean the logo, type, and color—these are all crucial elements for consistency in communications and merchandising. But can you tell a community, especially one that is trained to question such directives, how to talk about themselves?
In speaking with Bryony Gomez-Palacio co-founder of the blog and conference, Brand New, she notes, “You have a very unique challenge [with higher ed]. Basically, everybody’s offering the same thing. Doesn’t matter if you’re more humanities or more stem-oriented, essentially each organization is offering the same thing. And it’s governed by the same body of people, basically, who are always looking sideways, what is everybody else doing? What is working for the other? So let’s go ahead and do that. And let’s keep it safe.”
I couldn’t agree more. As many schools are struggling with enrollment there is a tendency to move towards a safe zone—to be like everyone else. Instead, they should be doing the opposite by owning what makes them unique and clearly communicating that to their prospective students. Dive deeper into what distinguishes them—are they known for an area of research or study? Traditions? The location of the campus? A specific offering or teaching approach? Dig into the things that your audience finds most meaningful: connections, fun, a sense of purpose and place.
On the other end, as schools evolve so does their student base, leaving some alumni to feel disconnected with the school. “This isn’t the school I attended,” is something we hear often from our clients when working on their alumni magazines. Understanding how to bridge these two is imperative to continue engagement for recent graduates as well as pride for older alumni.
Melissa Connolly, Vice President for Communications and Marketing, University of Albany notes, “The key is to tell the stories of the university in a consistent and compelling way; to highlight those things that are unique and cutting edge, and use a consistent visual style guide, while honoring and recognizing all the audiences for whom the university’s brand is important.”
So to answer my question, I do think it is important for members of an institution to have clear talking points in order to effectively differentiate themselves for prospective students and engage with alumni. But I believe the word “brand” gets used inappropriately in higher ed. Melissa adds, “The word ‘brand’ is often confounded with the assets of a brand, like a logo or tagline, or the idea that an organization must have a single unique selling proposition. But that’s not how universities work. Universities are made up of thousands of stories of individual experience. A university’s relationship with its publics is complex and varied, and highly dependent on individual circumstances.”
As Bryony notes, “Identity is your kit of parts. The brand itself is when you turn all of those things into an emotional and psychological connection between the brand and the human, and whoever is experiencing that brand. And if you are consistent, that is really important as a brand, and you deliver on your promise, then that emotional connection is always going to grow. It doesn’t so much matter if it’s pink, or blue, or rounded or not round, it doesn’t matter, aesthetically as much. It’s how you’re using those assets in order to create that connection.”
As Universities define their brand they have to take risks to differentiate by defining a strong value proposition. The marketing and communications team train people on how to share that messaging for consistency across campus (which we all know can be challenging). But buy-in is imperative to get the messaging to stick. With that said it is important to be flexible and allow the brand to evolve because schools are designed for people to do just that. The culture of an institution cannot be distilled into one pithy phrase like, “Just Do it.”
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]]>I stumbled into attending Virginia Commonwealth University and it was one of the best decisions of my life. Not that my first-year freshman self would have agreed. But after settling in, I had the opportunity to study with amazing professors who gave me the foundation in creative thinking that I tap into every day. Richard Carlyon’s Visual Thinking class, Rob Carter’s Typography I, Graphic Design with Phil Meggs, and an incredible Independent Study with Akira Ouchi taught me the importance of research and ideation, the nuances of typography, and how to solve problems through visual thinking. Those experiences inform the decisions that I make today.
Research
Quite possibly the most exciting part of a project is the research. Visiting the school—taking in the architecture, landscape, and people. Listening to how people talk about the school, listening for common threads, and synthesizing what we learn into a research report. Creating mood boards from a curation of our photography and additional research and from there developing a color palette. I can hear the AI lovers in my head saying but it can find common terminology, categorize imagery, and create a color palette. That could be fine. It is what is done with that information that won’t change.
Ideation
Anyone who has worked at 2communiqué has heard me or my partner, Chris St. Cyr, say, “Pinterest is not research” (see Insight, “Inspiration vs. Plagiarism”). Well, that is more true than ever. If there is one thing that AI can do, it is deliver images based on prompts. If AI can do that you better make sure that your visual research is not about looking at what others have done. It is about taking the findings from the research phase and creating unique solutions. What font does that building make you think of? What color palette evokes a sense of place? What is the overall vibe that needs to be represented in the look and feel? Use AI to gather what has been done to make sure you do not replicate something that was already created.
Strategy
Developing creative work is one aspect of what we do, understanding how and where to engage with the audience is another—the strategy of storytelling. Print, digital, and social media are all channels that have to be considered in today’s age of storytelling. Understanding the audience and their preferences to develop a targeted content strategy is imperative. We can utilize AI to gather data on the user, identify optimum engagement times, and share results but then what we do with that information is the human element.
Storytelling
Finally, there is the storytelling itself. I know that AI can be trained and can get smarter. But I truly believe that writers, photographers, illustrators, videographers, art directors, and designers play a crucial role in creating work that matters. Having a distinct point of view and a unique creative lens is what makes communications authentic and we need authenticity more than ever.
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]]>The post Building Health Equality appeared first on 2communiqué.
]]>Explaining how the Delivery System Reform Incentive Payment (dSRIP) program worked was complicated; but to be beneficial, the program’s outcomes had to be accessible and easily understood. We believed a long-form narrative was key to making this possible.
Through video interviews, an engaging story, and provocative photography, “Empowering a Community to Health” brought the program’s impact to life. A multilayered experience, this narrative transported the reader into the world of the health ambassadors and the incredible impact of their work. Its look and feel was informed by the redesigned visual identity for the Alliance, providing an overall experience that better represented its mission.
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]]>The post A Perfect Partnership appeared first on 2communiqué.
]]>Perspective
One of the most important factors in a partnership is having different perspectives. The in-house team knows the community, institutional priorities, and how things get done. That knowledge can also act as an anchor, holding the team down. I have worked as an in-house creative and know firsthand that “we have never done it that way” can hinder creative thinking. Second-guessing the outcome of a decision blocks decisions before they can be further explored.
When you are in it day after day you can be too close to see the right solution. A consultant brings clarity to problems that can be too hard to solve internally. In order to do that it is imperative that they listen to their clients’ unique perspective and balance it with strategic and creative solutions. They have a deep knowledge of a targeted expertise and stay on top of marketing and industry trends in order to best advise their clients.
By combining these different perspectives, you can bring together an understanding of the culture with a team with an outside viewpoint to build on new ideas.
When Elias Martinez, assistant vice president for marketing, was developing the brand campaign for Texas State, he shared the brand platform and creative idea developed by his team with three different specialized, subject matter expert creative firms. He then took the results in-house to develop the final work.
“One of my team’s biggest strengths is our institutional knowledge and familiarity with the university. It can also be our biggest weakness. Being part of the university’s day-to-day grind can take you down the path toward incremental change, not meaningful brand reinvention. By inviting people we admire and trust to work alongside us, we unlocked new possibilities and created a very dynamic and distinctive new brand campaign that’s authentic to Texas State University.”
Legitimacy
Years ago I was teaching a class on Professional Ethics at the Art Institute of Boston. I brought years of experience to the group but I could see their eyes light up when a visiting speaker would share an insight—that I had already mentioned. As frustrating as this was, I knew there was a legitimacy the speaker brought to the group that I was not delivering.
In-house teams have the same depth of experience but for many reasons they may sometimes need that outside voice to support what they already know. A VP or AVP may hire a consultant to affirm why things should be done a certain way, build a case for spending the money to do a project, or bring structure to the project to allow for objective reasoning.
When internally you can’t get the buy-in you need, it helps to have someone in your corner providing legitimacy to the rationale.
Experience
I have redesigned dozens of institution magazines and along the way worked with many talented in-house designers and editors. What I have learned is that few come to their position from a magazine background. Editors tend to move into the position from newspapers while the designers inherit the magazine as part of a larger role working on marketing communications. That does not mean that they are not capable of creating a magazine, but it can mean that they don’t know best practices or have experience collaborating or art directing editorial artwork. A partnership with a firm who has expertise in the areas you may not can help to elevate the work and educate the internal team.
Eric Cardenas, director of publications and public affairs at University of Tampa notes, “UT’s long-standing partnership with 2communiqué has provided not only expert guidance and direction to the magazine, but also stability and consistency over the tenures of four editors. This partnership has brought unprecedented editorial sophistication and reader engagement, while also helping staff define the magazine’s place in the mission of the University.”
Over the years more creative firms and editorial consultants have been bringing their experience in consumer magazines to the education sector. Redesigning the magazines for internal teams to produce moving forward, consulting on issue development, or acting as an external art department. The result is the quality of the magazine improving exponentially (anyone that has been tracking the work in the CASE Editors Magazine Exchange can attest to that). The stories have always been there, but now they are matched with strategic editorial plans and sophisticated visuals.
Accountability
I know from my own experience that when I am held accountable I am more likely to follow through with something. Work-out at home alone? Chances are I will find an excuse to skip it. Run with a friend? I’m in.
I have not done a study to prove it, but I would bet that since the 2009 recession internal teams have more on their plates than ever before. Budgets and teams were cut and they have never fully recovered (the pandemic was then the second blow). But it isn’t just financial implications—there is also the fact that there are more ways to engage with people than ever before so the average workload has increased (this is from my informal qualitative study). Having that friend holding you accountable can help keep you on track.
That accountability can be about the schedule. It can also be about pushing ideas. When you are juggling a dozen things it is understandable that the simpler solution may be chosen. But at the end of the day you want to do the best possible work. That outside voice can be the one that gets you there.
Size
Back to that team size. I think that everyone can agree that the workload in communications offices has increased over the years. Print production is typically done in-house now, and there are more and more ways to share content—and measure the outcomes. Despite this, internal teams remain relatively small. Partnering with consultants allows for the work to get done without adding full time employees.
One of our strategic partners, Laura Cole, now a content strategy consultant, shared an experience from when she was working in-house at the University of Central Florida. At the time they had plenty of story ideas being submitted, but between juggling working on the magazine, the news site, social media, marketing projects, strategic initiatives, websites, and community messaging, they were spread thin—even with a decent-sized internal team. They decided to partner with Dog Ear Creative [also a 2communiqué partner on Georgetown Business] to dig for stories for specific departments in the magazine and to help build out a database of story ideas.
Laura notes, “It was nice just having someone else saying, no really, this is a cool story and people will care about it and here’s a way you could package it. It took that one thing off our plates—and gave us more time to do the actual work.”
Enthusiasm
Finally, with the increased workload and pressure in the education sector we can sometimes forget that we got into this work because we enjoy it and want to use our skills to advance institutions. Whether it is making a magazine—thinking about the readers, stories on campus, art direction and design; creating a year-end video that captures the campus spirit; or developing a campaign that will have an impact on your enrollment or institution’s financial health, our work as communications specialists is important and fun. Consultants are not mired down in the every day must-do list, back-to-back internal meetings, and the office politics which allows us to support the team and be cheerleaders.
Alison Benie, VP Bowdoin notes, “Remind us that we are having fun.”
Sometimes you just need another perspective.
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]]>The post Digital Storytelling 101 appeared first on 2communiqué.
]]>Know Your Publishing Capabilities. The beauty of the Web is that you can do anything—if you have the budget and people power. The first thing you need to understand is how much time you can put into maintaining your website. In-house communication teams are already overloaded with work, so being realistic about how frequently you can publish to the site is important. Hopefully, it is more than three times a year but if that’s what your team (or you, if you are the team) can realistically handle, your publishing schedule and content strategy need to be built around that. You also need to consider who is updating the website. Some publications are built with the school’s content management system and are more complex on the back-end. A blog format, like WordPress, has a more intuitive back end and therefore is easier for most people to use.
Put the Reader First. When developing your website, deconstruct your print magazine and look at content categorization. If you have completed the CASE Reader Survey then you have an idea of what topics your readers are interested in. Use that information to create the framework for your information architecture.
Cindy Buccini at Bostonia notes, “We spent a lot of time thinking about the tags, categories, and subcategories. And there’s a standard form for someone writing a story with tags and categories to choose from so that everybody’s picking from the same list.” Print-specific terms like “feature” have a different meaning online. Don’t just move your print content online but really consider how someone is going to search for articles.
Build the Editorial Plan. A well thought-out magazine takes into consideration the stories that need to be told and the angles to tell them. Including different members of the team—the writer, editor, designer, photographer, videographer, and social media manager—early in the process brings in different perspectives on the best way to capture the story. This planning is even more important when considering digital assets. Recorded interviews allow for the addition of audio, photo shoots that include video add depth to the narrative, and illustrations with motion capture a reader’s attention. All of these need to be considered in early discussions in order to properly plan for content development.
Michelle Tedford at University of Dayton notes, “When we are creating stories, we are keeping both print and digital in mind. So if it is a digital-only edition, we think about those stories that will work best with multimedia. And if we’re thinking if it’s a print and digital edition, we think of, you know, what is the print story budget? And then what do we need to do differently to enhance what we’re doing digitally? What sound do we need to capture?”
Another consideration is the longevity of a digital issue. Tedford: “We always try to have a couple of [evergreen stories] in each issue. If a particular story has longevity, we have more opportunity for people to bounce around within the issue if they find a story.”
Publish, Share, and Promote. Unlike a popular consumer magazine or newspaper, your readers are probably not coming to your publication site directly. But one of the strengths of a member-based magazine is that you have a community—you just need to engage with them where they are. That means developing a strategic content strategy.
According to Tiffany Harbrecht, freelance writer and content strategist, former co-managing editor and contributing writer for Washington Square Magazine: “Publishing the content online is just the beginning of the digital strategy for Washington Square. The team always considers how content should best be shared on each channel, so it best highlights the stories in snackable and engaging ways, and looks closely at both the magazine website’s analytics and real-time interactions and comments on social media to drive social and content strategies forward.”
Consider how you will tell the story in print, digital, and social. How can you roll out a content plan for a magazine that publishes two or three times a year? How can you leverage your audience to expand the narrative through social media? Will you do an e-newsletter takeover or spread out magazine content over multiple issues? How can you take advantage of member expertise?
At the end of the day we are storytellers—and the message is the medium.
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]]>The post Know Your Audience appeared first on 2communiqué.
]]>Audience is at the core of all our work, whether it is a reader of a magazine, a prospective student looking at admission materials, or a donor looking to invest. In all instances, we are looking to connect with them on a meaningful level. The better we understand them, the more defined we can be in the messages we develop and the more unique the work will be.
Last month I had the opportunity to attend Eagle Day at American University. At the end of the day, I wanted to package up the entire experience and share it with prospective families that could not be there. Why was it so successful? Because AU knows their students and families—it is a school for people that want to make an impact in the world. From the morning presentation “Making the Most of Your First Year” by Jessica Waters, Dean of Undergraduate Education and Vice Provost for Academic Services, and Shawn Chatmon, Interim Director, Residence Life, to the break-out session by Saul Newman, Associate Dean in the School of Public Affairs, the presentations felt real. They were humorous (where has the humor gone in admissions material?!) and at times unfiltered.
Jessica shared, “Whenever I’m thinking about speaking to prospective students and families, my goal is to help people figure out if our institution feels like it could be a ‘home’ for them. That requires that we, as institutions, be transparent about our values, opportunities, and the student experience. The goal is to help students find that ‘home’—for some, that will be AU, for others it won’t be. Helping a student figure that out—either way—is the goal.”
After touring numerous schools, listening to guides share very similar highlights despite where we were, and viewing hundreds of communications very few stood out. For the most part, they felt similar and lacked a unique story or understanding of how to differentiate themselves from a heavily saturated and competitive market. It was about selling the school instead of what Jessica notes being student-focused and helping individuals find the right place.
This homogenization is also present in alumni communications, specifically in magazines. It is important to look at other schools for best practices but even more important to reflect inwards to better understand what resonates for your audience. And how do you tell that story in a way that is unique your school?
As I think of my child heading off to college, I know that he is about to embark on the most transformative experience of his life. He will be focused on what he is passionate about, surrounded by like-minded peers, mentored by highly educated faculty, and living in a new city. When we look back on that time in someone’s life shouldn’t that be a core element in an alumni magazine? To be curious, intellectual, and take some risks?
Of course there are the stories that need to be told. But how can they be told in a way that is unique to the characteristics of the school and readership?
The cover story for the Spring 2023 issue of Bowdoin was a story that has been told many times, the transition of a President. But when it came to sharing that story on the cover, they took a unique approach. Interim Editor, Alison Bennie, looked beyond the surface of the story to consider what it was like for President Rose over the last 6 years and how he kept calm and steady during this challenging time. Art Director, Melissa Wells, worked with illustrator John Jay Cabuay to capture this theme for the cover.
“We knew that we didn’t want to show a portrait of President Rose on the cover because that isn’t our cover style. We also wanted to go deeper into his story. The final cover speaks to who we are as a college and community,” notes Alison.
Christina Barber-Just, editor of the Smith Alumnae Quarterly published Democracy in Distress: a special series on the threats facing democracy today over three consecutive issues (Summer 2022, Fall 2022, and Winter 2023). She shared her experience:
“We were interested in exploring the idea of democracy, but we didn’t want to give our readers the same news they could get anywhere else. Since Smithies themselves don’t shy away from the hottest of hot-button issues, we decided to wade right into the culture wars and focus on topics that are controversial but of critical importance to our alums. We did extensive research to find and identify alums making meaningful change in the areas of abortion rights, voting rights, transgender rights, book bans, disinformation, and more who could serve as sources for the stories in the series.
“The trans rights story was reported and written by a young alum, Oliver Haug ’20. After it was published, we heard from one of Haug’s sources. ‘I often felt invisible and unwanted by the college community while I was transitioning at Smith,’ the alum wrote, ‘so seeing my bearded face and he/him pronouns in the SAQ feels incredibly healing and powerful for me. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for uplifting trans voices, trans joy, and trans Smithies during this stressful and polarizing time.’
“Democracy in Distress represents a big swing that took months to plan and almost a year to fully execute, but it shows that even a quarterly can engage with current events in a timely and relevant way that hits home with its unique readership. What truly makes the series distinctive is that it was told by the voices of people who have traditionally been marginalized and excluded from discussions around democracy: women, trans people, and people of color.”
In the recently launched podcast by Dog Ear Creative, “My Finest Work,” Maureen Harmon, co-founder and managing director, speaks with Notre Dame Magazine editor, Kerry Temple, about an issue from 2004 dedicated to religion and sexual orientation. What stood out to me was the time that he took with subjects and how well he understood Notre Dame and how to tell that story for the college.
As he notes in his editor’s letter in the issue, “We have done what we always do—report what’s really happening on campus, let members of the Notre Dame family tell their stories, provide the forum for an engaging exchange of ideas, thoughts, beliefs and experiences in order to help us all understand our world, each other and ourselves better. Some issues divide us. Often these are the very ones that most deserve an airing. Often these are the very ones that come in shades of gray, defying black-and-white answers.
Sometimes it’s okay to explore the questions without arriving at absolute certainty. Sometimes the hope is simply to get people to listen and think about things in a way they haven’t before. Sometimes it’s right to speak of a love that dares to discomfort us.”
Sometimes taking a deep look at your audience means rethinking how you even talk about your institution. When we first engaged with NativityMiguel Coalition they were diving deep into the organization’s history and mission to develop their strategic plan. As they revisited their original positioning they stepped back and asked the question: Are we serving the students as best as we can today? Not when we were founded 50 years ago. What they discovered was they needed to rethink their position to guide students to become their best authentic selves, which can happen in more pathways than just college.
“As we came up on our 50-year anniversary it was a perfect time to revisit our mission, vision, and positioning. It was also important to reflect current terminology of asset-framed language and investment over charity. This research guided the development of not just our strategic plan but also a new mission statement and positioning that clarifies who NMC is today and the value we bring to our member schools,” Danny Perez, Executive Director.
It was this deeper understanding of the organization, its member schools, and the students they served that is the foundation of their brand positioning and language.
The need to understand our audiences and a willingness to be unique is more important than ever—especially as AI becomes more and more prevalent in storytelling. Institutions need to connect authentically. This means taking time to research and understand what makes the community different, what stories convey that difference, and how to tell them as only we/you can.
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]]>A 2019 Shutterstock poll notes, “86% of consumers believe authenticity is an important factor when deciding which brands they like and want to support.” With brands like Levi getting pushback for introducing AI models, we realize that it is even more important to represent brands in an authentic way. Schools are full of interesting people and unique environments. Now that we once again have the opportunity to capture individuals in person, let’s be thoughtful about how we represent our communities.
I recently listened to Gael Towey, founding art director, Martha Stewart Living, talk with Martha Stewart on her podcast about their experience launching the magazine. Due to political reasons with Conde Nast, editorial photographers were embargoed from working with MSL. Not wanting to lose this important revenue stream meant saying no to Gale and her team. Working with photographers from Martha Stewart’s books, they introduced a new aesthetic to women’s magazines which in turn led to one of the strengths of MSL—its signature photography style. What if higher ed considered moving beyond its traditional approach?
A Unique Perspective
I am drawn to the recent work Sutter Street by Timothy Archibald. The series captures moments at the Academy of Art in San Francisco with a different lens. Yet having worked with Timothy for years on editorial portrait assignments (including a recent shoot for Nobles), I can see his approach come through in this series. As he notes on his website, “I’m the photographer agencies call to make empathetic photographs of things that are a little bit different, a little bit curious. Human, humorous and always soulful.” And that is what comes through in this series: curiosity, humor, and soul.
Archibald has a unique perspective and experience as faculty at Academy of Art. In discussing the project he notes: “In the Fall of 2022 I started to photograph my little world on Sutter Street in San Francisco, CA, a street that became my everyday when I began teaching photography at the school.
“There is a unique situation going on here: I’m a photographer photographing other photographers (my students) for a project they’ve all seen as I develop it on social media. I also have a local awareness of the location. This has allowed me to know the significance of locations, what they collectively mean to us all, as opposed to simply what they look like.
“I have had clients approach me about shooting a commercial job that looks and feels like ‘Sutter Street.’ I do think it’s that ‘insider vibe’ that creatives are attracted to in this collection. Delivering that for a commercial job takes a bit more time invested with the subjects and locations before our shoot day. We don’t always hit that vibe, but we can come awfully close.”
Inside Perspective
There is no one who will know your campus—or that your community will know—as well as your university photographer. Chief Photographer at Tufts University, Alonso Nichols, notes, “My connection to the community has been a bedrock of my ability to tell stories in an authentic and vital way. It is the basis of trust and it has become part of the aesthetic. Students, alumni, faculty, and other readers/viewers have come to understand that what I create is real. People I photograph or interview connect with me in a way that is genuine and that connection opens doors.”
This familiarity and authenticity comes through in Alonso’s portrayal of Tufts.
In addition to the trust that the community has with the photographer there is access and presence. This ongoing presence shows representation of different aspects of the campus at all times and places.
A Range of Perspectives
While a university photographer can bring about an intimacy with the campus and subjects, it is rare to find a university photographer who can do it all. Just as it can be hard to find a writer who can write a feature and lead a podcast or a designer who can create an admission publication and an animation for a social post. Bringing in outside talent and perspective broadens the narrative, expertise, and perspectives being shared.
When we are selecting photographers for assignments, we are looking not just at their work but also their backgrounds and personal experiences (many photographers have personal work on their websites which gives insight to who they are).
We recently worked with Bowdoin on an assignment photographing Emily Wong, a female alum, who is also a photographer. I immediately knew that I wanted to have Jessica Scranton do the shoot. Not only was I familiar with Jessica’s work, I also had the opportunity to have coffee with her pre-pandemic and her personality is infectious. As Jessica herself notes, “I create authentic imagery by connecting quickly with the people I am photographing. It’s not something that I seek out to do but instead is an inherent personality trait of mine. I am very much myself and that let’s people relax and be comfortable around me while I’m photographing.
“When I met Emily Wong it became very clear that we had many things in common from photography to travel—we even wore very similar clothing! Having instant connections like this are rare and it made for excellent imagery because we both relaxed and sank into the experience together.”
Direction
We also worked with Jessica for a photo essay on the Women & Infants Hospital for Medicine@Brown. Again, we knew that her warmth and energy would put people at ease and allow for us to get a story that another photographer may not have been able to achieve. She also had extensive experience photographing women giving birth so we knew that she would connect with the story.
“Photographing at Women and Infants hospital was an incredibly special piece for me. I specialize in international maternal health rights and have photographed women giving birth around the globe. It felt amazing to bring this passion for this subject matter home to the United States and photograph this impactful and meaningful story. I connected deeply with Dr. Methodis Tuuli who was born in Ghana, Africa. We talked about maternal health in Africa and in the United States. This conversation brought us closer and aided our ability to connect in front of the camera,” Jessica says.
To prepare for the assignment we curated a selection of Jessica’s work and talked with her multiple times to ensure that we all had the same vision for the story. From there we stepped back and let her capture the story. I have found that more cooks ruin the shot. Subjects can already be uncomfortable being photographed. Adding an art director looking over the shots and engaging with the photographer can add to that discomfort and also inhibit the chemistry between the photographer and subject. An editor doesn’t attend the interview and the art director does not need to attend the shoot. Plan a detailed shot list, review direction, and let it go from there.
Bring in the motion
Then there is video. Videos can help your story reach a broader audience. A recent article from HubSpot, “How Video Consumption is Changing in 2023,” notes “YouTube viewers are motivated to watch content that teaches them new things, primarily related to their passions, interests, hobbies, or social causes.” In fact, according to HubSpot Blogs research, 13% of consumers watch videos to “explore an interest or passion,” while 11% want to “learn something new.” This seems like a perfect opportunity for higher ed to not just give people a sense of their school but a sense of the curriculum.
Facts:
— The number of digital video viewers worldwide is expected to reach 3.5 billion.
— In 2023, people are watching, on average, 17 hours of online videos per week.
— People are 52% more likely to share video content than any other type of content.
— 75% of viewers watch short-form video content on their mobile devices.
— 83% of marketers suggest videos should be under 60 seconds.
This means that your content should be short, engaging, and informative. Also noted is that 36% feel that the quality is somewhat important while another 27% are neutral. Thanks to Tik Tok, viewers are used to home quality production so that means videos don’t have to be commercial-level quality.
Photographer Jared Leeds, a seasoned commercial and editorial photographer, made the leap into video, if not willingly. His experience working with subjects as an editorial portrait photographer meant that he has the skills to engage and direct people in a shoot. He also brings a still photographer’s eye to the framing and composition—something that can be hard for videographers to bring to still photography. While his love is still with photography he notes in The Issue, “I’ve come to really appreciate the depth of layered storytelling that video offers, that photography on its own may not. With video, the creator is often able to tell a more complete story over time. Sound design, music, coloring, and editing create multiple layers that lead to a more fleshed-out, developed mood and narrative.”
Whether your project calls for video or photography there are consistent themes to consider. Selecting the right photographer or videographer for the project is key to representing the subject in an authentic manner. Part of your process should include curating a selection of their work and discussing the direction with them and working with them to plan for the assignment. Then step back and let them connect with the subjects. And never force a shot. Your viewers will know.
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]]>Often when we think of brands, we immediately go to the big consumer names. My mind goes to Nike, Apple, and Target. But what if that brand is your private school, college, or university? When that “consumer” is your alumni, parent, or student community, how do you connect with each in order to build your brand? You share “memories, stories, and relationships” from your community.
In a recent conversation with Ali McNichols, Director of Brand Content, Marketing and Communications at Purdue University she shared, “People can go to college anywhere these days. There are hundreds of universities in the U.S. alone. You could go anywhere, why would you want to go to Purdue? What is so special? What is it about this story that makes it special to Purdue and unique to Purdue?”
To effectively engage their audiences, Purdue launched “Branding Our Next Giant Step” a new brand focused on storytelling. The initiative includes The Persistent Pursuit, a digital storytelling platform featuring the people of Purdue. These stories—and all of their communications—are clearly branded with the school’s colors and fonts. “With a story this momentous, it’s up to each of us to share it in an equally impressive way,” McNichols says.
But it is more than pairing the story to the school’s identity, it is also the way in which the story is visually interpreted. Just as writers are selected for particular stories and guided on voice and tone, visual styles need to be defined. When 2communiqué is working on a rebrand, we make direction for illustration and photography an important aspect of the guidelines. Defining a clear direction (i.e. candid vs. portrait photography) helps to ensure the school’s people and places are being represented in a unique way.
Collaboration with university photographers and videographers is equally important. As a part of the storytelling team, their understanding of the story’s theme and goals helps provide clarity and strengthens the narrative. This connection simply cannot be accomplished when photography and video are approached as assignment tasks versus a collaborative effort.
Communication and direction are also crucial when working with off-campus partners. Just as with an in-house team, freelance photographers need to understand the brand to capture the subject or story in a way that aligns with the narrative. We find that curating a sample of their work, along with sharing guidelines, helps to clarify the direction.
Medicine@Brown conveys the unique position of a medical school for people with a liberal arts background. Shared photography from alumni, portraits of people outside of the medical profession, and cover directions that offer a sense of warmth are key brand elements that aid in the success of the magazine.
“Our brand is built on the authentic experience that students have at The Warren Alpert Medical School. As alumni, when they see an image of a doctor doing yoga or admire an artistic photograph taken by a student, it stirs feelings of nostalgia and connection. Images are deeply tied to emotions. I want alums to look at every issue of the magazine and say ‘That’s my Brown,’ or even better, ‘Only at Brown,’”says editor Kris Cambra.
Beyond photography, more and more universities are understanding the impact that illustration brings to the narrative. (I suggest everyone read The Impact of Illustration and University Magazine, published with RappArt). Unlike photography, illustration does not limit a project to location, broadening the options to thousands of illustrators. But like photography, it is essential to clarify style for illustration, perhaps to an even greater degree because there are so many options available. Understanding the visual style helps immensely with the illustrator selection and direction, ensuring the piece provides a fresh perspective while enhancing your brand.
The redesign of Georgetown Business includes illustrators with bold, graphic styles who have the ability to distill complex topics into eye-catching covers. This artful combination both builds the brand of the magazine and differentiates it from a crowded market of portrait-focused covers.
“The newly reimagined Georgetown Business magazine was an intentional departure from the portrait style of our previous additions. We wanted our magazine to reflect who we are — a bold, innovative, and forward-thinking institution that isn’t afraid to tackle the complex issues of the day. The result is a magazine design that parallels our school ethos and quickly captures the attention of our readers. Since we launched the first issue of the redesigned magazine, various school leaders, alumni, and community members have commented on how different this magazine looks from previous editions (as well as from other higher ed magazines more broadly) but that it still feels distinctively Georgetown.” notes Samantha Kraus, Director of Marketing and Communications.
What about “the consumer?” Podcasts, longform narrative, video, and print make it possible to build a brand with broader audience reach than ever before. Perdue’s McNichols notes, “We wanted to create this space [The Persistent Pursuit] where no matter what kind of medium you were interested in, absorbing, and consuming you would find it. We have everything from our amazing podcasts to consume storytelling from an audio form or you can read longform storytelling. If video is your preferred medium of getting a story, we’ve got everything from a documentary to, you know, two minute videos that are really quick to consume.”
Last year, 2communiqué partnered with Iowa State University to transform their Visions magazine from an alumni magazine to their flagship publication, Iowa Stater. Our work went beyond identity application to the critical task of connecting with the ISU community. We knew that they were passionate about the school’s cardinal red and gold colors, but we needed to understand the kind of stories that interested them. After an extensive process that included interviews, surveys, and a review of ISU’s existing research and communications, we developed user personas, an editorial plan, and a content strategy, all with an eye toward connecting with the ISU community “where they were.”
In a nutshell, the stories you tell—and the manner in which they are told—helps to connect your school with your community. Because a brand is so much more than colors, fonts and a logo: it’s a “set of expectations, memories, stories and relationships” that reminds us why it’s important—and why we want to—stay connected.
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